1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical positioner having an immobilizer function. More particularly, the present invention relates to a medical positioner having an immobilizer function, which freely and accurately corrects a patient's posture on an examination table for diagnosis or treatment in an immobile posture, and maintains the corrected posture to enhance accuracy of the diagnosis or treatment carried out through medical equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medical equipment (e.g. a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, a Computerized Axial Tomography (CT) scanner, X-ray equipment, an ultrasound scanner, a linear accelerator for radiotheraphy, etc.) for diagnosis and treatment is equipped with an examination table for a patient such that the patient can assume a stable posture. A medical positioner for restricting the patient's freedom to enhance accuracy of the diagnosis and treatment in a stable posture is used for such an examination table.
The medical positioner employs a belt fixed to the examination table to immobilize the patient, or a detachable vacuum pad. The immobilization based on the belt fails to properly cope with patients who have different physical conditions, and thus has low applicability.
For this reason, the detachable vacuum pad has been frequently used, because the detachable vacuum pad is smoothly deformed along a physical line of the patient to be able to properly cope with various physical conditions of patients.
This detachable vacuum pad is provided with a positioning lock bar having holes, and the examination table is provided with pins so as to be fitted into the holes of the lock bar. The lock bar is attached to an outer surface of the vacuum pad by an adhesive, or the like.
However, this detachable vacuum pad is formed of synthetic fiber, and the positioning lock bar is formed of rigid plastic. As such, when the lock bar is attached to an outer surface of the vacuum pad by an adhesive, or the like, the lock bar often fails to be firmly attached.
Thus, when an examination position of the vacuum pad is set by inserting the pins of the examination table into the holes of the positioning lock bar fixedly attached to the vacuum pad in the state where the patient wears the vacuum pad, the lock bar is frequently separated from the vacuum pad. In this case, an error is made in positioning and fixing the vacuum pad for the diagnosis and treatment, and thus the accuracy of the diagnosis and treatment of the patient using the medical examination equipment is considerably decreased.